d.Class Notes #13

The Cultural Landscape

Main Terms
Where is the world population distributed?
Why is global population increasing?
Why does population growth vary among regions?
Why do some regions face health threats?

• Population concentrations
•  2/3 of the world's inhabitants are clustered in four regions:
• East Asia
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Europe
• Site and Situation
• Low-lying areas with fertile soil and temperate climate.
• Near an ocean or near a river with easy access to an ocean.
• Sparsely populated regions
• Humans avoid clustering in certain physical environments.
• Dry lands.
• Wet lands.
• Cold lands (near the poles).
• High lands.
• Places considered too harsh for occupancy have diminished over time.
• Population density.
• Density can be computed in up to three ways for a place:
• 1. Arithmetic density.
• Total number of objects in an area.
• Computation: divide population by the land area.
• 2. Physiological density.
• Number of people supported by a unit area of arable land.
• Computation: divide the population by arable land.
• 3. Agricultural density.
• Ratio of number of farmers to amount of arable land.
• Computation: divide the population of arable land area.
• Components of population growth.
• Geographers measure population change in a country (or the world as a whole) by using three measures:
• Crude birth rate (CBR).
• Crude death rate (CDR).
• Natural increase rate (NIR).
• CBR - CDR = NIR.